SavedVariables question in the WTF folder.

[Xully]

first of all , allow me to apologize for the butchering of the English language that you're about to witness here, English isn't my native, or even my 2nd language for that matter, please bare with me.

I have some of the lau files that should be placed in the SavedVariables folder in the WTF directory, I have done this million of times in the past, whenever a newer version of addon releases , or if I have to delete my whole WTF folder, i save those lau files configs of the specific addon, that was originally in my /SavedVariables folder, then I just place it in there one more time, and my profiles, settings, would showup in the game for that specific addon, normally I do this with two main addons, MikScrollingCombatText & Tidyplates....They have massive installation and setup, but I have done my own profiles in both, and I save the savedvariables file that said Addonname.lau and Addonname.lau.bak , and as i said, whenever i put these back in my wtf folder, my profile would show up.


Sorry for making this longer than it should , After the expansion, my problem is that I installed the newest version of these addons, now I bring my profiles lau savedvariables back in my wtf folder, and try to login into the game, whenever I log inside, it rewrites those files back to default , and empty, as if i just installed the addon, i done this millions of time, it keeps deleting my lau files, replacing them with the Default files.

please let me know why is that happening to me, I don't want to reconfigure everything from scratch.

[Dridzt]

If you are on a Windows7 or Vista PC this might help:
http://forums.wowace.com/showpost.ph...postcount=2357

[Xully]

Originally Posted by Dridzt If you are on a Windows7 or Vista PC this might help: http://forums.wowace.com/showpost.ph...postcount=2357

i don't think it's admin issue, because I've done this million of times on this same computer, in the past, before the expansion, I've done this here, didn't change a thing, also my WoW directory isn't in C:\Program Files to begin with, it's in D:\ ,but yea the point is , i dont this before with no problem.

[lerb]

Hm.. Lau? Have you named them "addonname.lau"? That's wrong, it should be "Lua".

Addoname.lua

At first I thought you typed it wrong but you wrote it as "Lau" everywhere so I figured you did the same for the files? It's a long-shot from my side though.

[Xully]

Originally Posted by lerb Hm.. Lau? Have you named them "addonname.lau"? That's wrong, it should be "Lua". Addoname.lua At first I thought you typed it wrong but you wrote it as "Lau" everywhere so I figured you did the same for the files? It's a long-shot from my side though.

no man, i wrote it wrong everywhere lol, i didn't write the files or anything, i just configured my addons, then went into the SavedVariables folder thats inside WTF directory, then copy those files, and yes its Lua as you mentioned, and then i paste them into that folder whenever i renew my addons, or go to another computer, which will make my profiles+configurations perfect...but not anymore, its not working for me now and I have no clue why.

[Phanx]

You shouldn't need to restore your SavedVariables files after updating an addon on the same computer, unless you used a program like the Curse Client to completely uninstall the addon and remove its saved variables before installing the update, which is not necessary; you can just install the update right over the top of the previous version.

As for your actual problem, try deleting your entire WTF folder (after making a backup) and then logging into WoW, and logging back out. Now run a search on your computer for the WTF folder, to see where WoW is creating the new one.

Finally, if you are copying files into the SavedVariables (or any other) folder while WoW is running, that is your problem -- if WoW is running, it's holding a copy of every file in memory, and will write those copies to disk when it exits, overwriting the new files you moved into the folder. Make sure WoW is not running, and then copy the files, and then start WoW.

[lerb]

Have you checked if you've accidently copied the backups of the saved variable files? Recently (I think) the game started creating "lua.bak" files of all the saved variables. You should have both "addonname.lua" and "addonname.lua.bak" in your WTF folders.

Again, just checking.

[Phanx]

WoW doesn't do anything with the *.bak files, and you do not need to back up or restore them. The only issue would be if you were only backing up and restoring the *.bak files and not the *.lua files, but based on the OP's description, I don't think that's what's happening.

[myrroddin]

When using the Curse Client to update an existing addon, it does not touch the saved variables. It only updates the addon itself. Just so you know. The Client does have a saved variable cleaner, which scans for orphaned saved variable files, but you have to give it the OK to remove them. You can also use it to delete specific saved variable files, even if the addon is still installed, but again, you have to specifically do this yourself.

When you use the Curse Client to delete an addon, it gives you the option to delete orphaned library files, saved variables, etc. Again, that is your choice; the program is not designed to purposely delete things it should not.

As for your saved variables, did you put them in the correct place? Some go into WTF\Account\YourAccountName\SavedVariables, others go into WTF\Account\YourAccountName\ServerName\CharacterName. The best way to find out is keep your existing WTF copied to somewhere safe, like the Desktop, start the game, do some minor alterations to the settings of any given addon, /reloadui, then browse your hard drive to both those locations. If you see your addon's SV file, replace it with the copy from your Desktop, /reloadui, and you should be fixed.

[lerb]

Originally Posted by Phanx WoW doesn't do anything with the *.bak files, and you do not need to back up or restore them. The only issue would be if you were only backing up and restoring the *.bak files and not the *.lua files, but based on the OP's description, I don't think that's what's happening.

That's what I was referring to, though it might have been unclear

[SDPhantom]

Originally Posted by myrroddin ... replace it with the copy from your Desktop, /reloadui, and you should be fixed.

/reload will trigger WoW to overwrite the files you just copied, WoW also does this on character logout (exiting to where you can select your character). At the point when you're at the character select screen, it's safe to copy the SavedVariable files and WoW will read them when you log back on your character.

There is a way of using /reload without logging out, but you need to set the files as read-only before doing it and set them back afterward. I've used this method to hotswap macros before, which are written at the same time as SavedVariables.

[Farmbuyer]

The builtin command is just "/reload". Or "/console reloadui" if you're very old-school. Or "/rl" if you have the Ace3 package installed.

[SDPhantom]

Originally Posted by Farmbuyer The builtin command is just "/reload". Or "/console reloadui" if you're very old-school. Or "/rl" if you have the Ace3 package installed.

Fixed it in my post, shows how much of a hurry I was to get to work this morning.
Old school is also /run ReloadUI(). Before they added the /reload command, I made a button I left-click to reload and right-click to restart the graphics engine.